Does Voting Technology Affect Election Outcomes?

l2718 writes "Two economists have just posted a paper online, showing a small correlation between counties' use of paperless electronic voting systems and voting results in the recent presidential election (after controlling for other factors). They found no evidence for systematic fraud by testing several potential indicators. Rather, the voting method seems to affect the relative turnout of different voter demographies. Thanks to Election Law Blog for the pointer."

Comments

Bad Logic

[Doc Ruby]

"If irregularities did take place, they would be most likely in counties that could potentially affect statewide election totals, or in counties where election officials had incentives to affect the results. Contrary to this prediction, we find no evidence that touch-screen voting had a larger effect in swing states, or in states with a Republican Secretary of State."

What if "irregularities" took place in lots of places, all of which favored Bush (by their own results)? That would include the more highly "incented" counties, and others, valuable for their masking effect. Of course, they can't analyze the electronic voting data itself for fraud, because faked data is undetectable in these trivially rewritable records, not to mention the many ways to record a different vote from that indicated by the voter - without a trace.

A scientific analysis would not have such holes in such a definitive statement discounting fraud. And honest people don't refer to vote fraud as "irregularities". States are paying lots of money to (Republican owned cartel) voting machine companies. I'd like to see some analysis of how these economists benefit from their "no fault" conclusions.